MSI Settles Debate on its Radeon RX 7900 Series Launch

MSI was conspicuous with its lack of Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards at launch, with neither product announcements, nor even placeholder product pages on its website as of this writing. Rumors started to fly on social media that the company is skipping the RX 7900 series, and that all is not well between MSI and AMD Radeon group. MSI last week laid many of these rumors to rest, with its MSI Gaming Twitter handle quote-tweeting an AMD Radeon handle with the message “Available Soon.”

Andreas Schilling of HardwareLuxx.de added more clarity on the issue with some first-hand info: although MSI skipped the December 12/13 launch dates, the company is preparing to release some custom-design RX 7900 series cards, and will present them in Q1-2023. The company is however skipping the launch of reference-design MBA (made by AMD) cards under its own brand—something most other AMD add-in board (AIB) partners did release on December 12. Although AMD directly sells reference-design cards, it also sells them through its AIB partners, by allowing them to use their own brand identity, custom packaging, inclusions, and product warranty specific to the brand.